


Falling apart Together

by Mjazilem



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Blind Character, Guardians of the Whills, Hurt/Comfort, Jedha, M/M, Spirit Assassin, SpiritAssassin Week, baze x chirrut, fall of the Temple, medic Baze, not graphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-28
Updated: 2017-04-28
Packaged: 2018-10-24 23:27:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10751985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mjazilem/pseuds/Mjazilem
Summary: They'd made it, they were alive. Baze hopes they aren't the only ones.Baze suddenly feels exhausted, his legs and arms too heavy to move. Baze lets his head drop to Chirrut's shoulder.Chirrut reaches up a hand and finds Baze's cheek and the dried blood there.





	Falling apart Together

**Author's Note:**

> Written quickly for spiritassassin week please let me know if there are any glaring errors I can fix

Baze shuts the solid door throws the bolt to lock it. He takes a shuttered breath and looks around the dark windowless room at the dirty shell shocked faces. 

They'd made it, they were alive. Baze hopes they aren't the only ones.

They'd run from the Temple as it fell down around them. He and Chirrut had managed to get out with six younglings and two other Guardians. They'd followed as Chirrut lead them through the dark tunnels from the bombarded Temple far into the city's center.

The room is quiet except for soft sobs coming from the youngest of the children and the hum of the lone yellowish bulb that lit up the back storage room they are hiding in.

They had been declared enemies of the Empire. They had to run or they would have surely been killed. So many were today.

Baze pushes the thought aside, he can't think about that yet. He has work to do.

Baze gives everyone a once over, using his medic's training from the war. He gently touches hands and faces looking for injuries and tends to them with the few supplies they have.

He kneels down with huddled children among the boxes in the storage room.  They have scraps and bruises from the temple falling down around them and the dark disused crumbling miner's tunnel they escaped through.

He cleans cuts and wraps Juin's head because of a particularly deep cut at their hair line. He and the other Guardians pass around what water they have and let everyone have a swallow.

Baze takes his canteen back from the last youngling and looks up to offer it to Chirrut but Chirrut isn't there.

Bazr turns one way and then the other. Chirrut isn't at his side, isn't with the others, isn't in the room.

Baze's throat tightens and panic grips him. His thoughts race. 'Chirrut had been here, he'd lead them here, he was here, they didn't loose him, was he lost...how could he not be here?' Baze looks at all the faces around him again desperately. There are sad eyes and tired eyes but no pale blue sightless ones.

A hand touches Baze's arm and he jumps, the canteen nearly slips from his hands but he catches it. It's Lul one of the other two Guardians, she's about a decade older than Baze, he always liked her smile, she's not smiling now, she nods wearily to a ladder in the far corner of the room. “He went that way.”

Baze breathes out heavily as relief washes over him. He nods his thanks to her and shouldering his pack he climbs the ladder.

He climbs though the door onto the roof, it's dark but he can see Chirrut's silhouetted against the glow of the city.

he's standing like a guard at his post. 

Baze stoops low as he crosses the rooftop. “What are you doing, Chirrut?” Baze hisses. “Come away from the ledge you fool, they'll see you.”

“I will hear them long before they see me.” Chirrut's voice is strained, throat raw from shouting and smoke. He speaks honestly though, Troopers couldn't help but sound like a heard of banthas walking through the city streets.

“You fool, they have search droids out scanning the city. One can transmit your location and then we'll have all the troopers coming for us.”

Chirrut is quiet then, hopefully thinking about what Baze has said and making the logical decision but he's too quiet for Baze's liking.

Baze takes a cautious step closer and reaches out for his husband's hand only to have it pulled away from his grasp. There is no angre in the movement just hurt.

“Let them come.” Chirrut says darkly. He does not turn to Baze, he faces out across the city, to where the Temple is burning ruins. Chirrut can't see it but Baze can and it's like a vice is clamped on his heart.

“Do not say that, do not wish that...” Baze has seen enough death for ten lifetimes he does not want to see anymore. 

“I...” Chirrut's voice cracks betraying the emotions he's feeling. “I will fight them all.”

“I know that... come inside please, we need to rest and regroup. We must figure out how we can get the younglings to safety." 

Chirrut turns his ear towards Baze now and Baze can finally see his face. His profile is tense and set with determination and streaked with dirt. Baze can see in the dim light from the street, wet tracks down Chirrut's cheek.

“I got them out.” He states, the 'like you asked' is left unsaid.

“You did and I think if you come inside we will be safe for the night because of you." 

“The others...” The sadness in the his husband's voice makes it clear to Baze he's not talking about the others downstairs. Chirrut would have fought until he fell with them. Had Baze not begged Chirrut to leave the fight he would be dead.

“There was nothing you could have done but die yourself. You fought and you saved those that you could, Force, sometimes living to fight another day is what counts.”

Baze sees the slight shakes of Chirrut's head, the self doubt setting in. Baze steps closer and speaks softly. “You got us here and you, you knew who in the city would give us shelter.”

Chirrut sighs, Baze knows that the fact that Chirrut knew the back alleys and rough neighborhoods of Jedha City isn't a source of pride for him. He's been trying to put the streets behind him since he was first an initiate. But Baze is proud.

He puts his hands on the other man's arms. He can feel Chirrut trembling. Baze doesn't know what to say, he can't say 'it will be alright' or 'don't worry' because it won't and how can they not.

He suddenly feels exhausted, his legs and arms too heavy to move. Baze lets his head drop to Chirrut's shoulder.

Chirrut reaches up a hand and finds Baze's cheek and the dried blood there then it's like a switch flips in Chirrut. He turns in Baze's grasp and lifts both hands, his staff cradled in his elbow, to examine Baze suddenly worried. “Are you alright my dear?” His brow furrows with concern and his fingertips ghost over Baze's face with urgency.

“I'm alright...” Baze takes Chirrut's hand and directs it to the left side of his face. “Lul already helped me clean the cut, the bleeding has slowed. It's sore. I've got tap on it here and here. But I didn't have anything to stitch it and well I don't know who I would get to sew it, no one else with us has that training.”

“I'll do it for you...” Chirrut says quietly, dryly. He wants to make the joke, to lighten the mood but it doesn't feel right after he starts so he lets it drop.

“I know love, I know...” Baze tries to reassure.

He holds Chirrut's hands tight and moves closer so their foreheads are touching and they are breathing the same air. Baze wants to loose himself in the sound of his beloved's breath and warmth of his skin. He wants to be happy that they are alive and think of nothing else, for a little while, just a little while... but they don't have that luxury.

“Did you tend to the children?”

“I did.” Baze keeps his eyes closed as if not seeing the flames glowing in the distance would make them less real, of course it didn't Chirrut could attest to that. 

“and Lul and Teal? No one was grievously injured were they?”

“They will be alright I believe, there are two... well three, wounds that I'll need to keep a close eye on but most were very minor.” Thank the Force.

“That is a small blessing.”

So many of their fellow Guardians died around them today. Baze is fighting back an overwhelming feeling of sorrow that is threatening to swallow him. He lets go of Chirrut's hands only to take him in his arms and hug him tightly. If he could stay like that forever and never let the other man go he would. Or he would have if Chirrut didn't inhale sharply and wince.

Baze pulls back and runs his eyes over Chirrut. He knows his husband, he should have seen this coming. “Where are you hurt?”

“I'm not...”

“Chirrut don't lie to me, this is not the time.”

“It's nothing.” Chirrut takes a step to move away but whatever is causing him pain flairs at the movement and makes his legs go weak.

Baze catches him and lowers him down to sit agains the wall. “You fool.” He chastises. “Show me.”

“You've taken care of all the others?”

“I told you so, now you have no excuse.”

"It's just a graze." 

Chirrut moves his arm and in the dim light Baze can see the hole in his robes over his ribs on the right side. Baze cursed Chirrut's black robes for hiding this so well. Baze carefully moves the fabrics and still causes Chirrut to suck in a breath.

It's a blaster burn. His side is scorched. Baze puts down his pack. “We don't have any bacta, antibac is all I have sadly but it will help. Can you turn this way for me. The lights a little better... hold it there.”

“I'll try.”

“I know.” Baze kisses Chirrut on the forehead then coats his hands in antibac.

“I'm going to get as much debris off as I can and clean it with the etholotion. It will hurt I'm sorry.”

Chirrut shakes his head. “I'm sorry.”

“For what?”

sadness wells in his eyes and tears threaten to fall. “For all this...” What all this was Baze could only guess. None of it was Chirrut's fault except maybe failing to tell Baze he was injured.

he just takes on the weight of the Force at times. 

“shuuuu, just relax,” Baze hushes him. “Let me work and then we'll rest.” Chirrut leans against the wall and Baze gets the supplies out of his pack. He uses tweezers to pull bits of fabric away from the burn. Chirrut stays still and quiet the whole time though Baze can see the muscles in his jaw twitch and tense.

Baze checks over the burn with careful fingers. When he's satisfied he wipes gently over the area with a antibac soaked gauze.

“I'm going to tape some clean gauze over this area loosely to try and keep it clean.” Baze explains as he finishes up his ministrations.

“Thank you.” Chirrut's voice sounds weak to Baze's ears and he notices that Chirrut is leaning against the wall a little more bonelessly.

Baze shifts over to be beside him and gathers Chirrut in his arms. “Anything for you my love.”

Chirrut lifts a tired hand up to Baze's face. He's not looking for injuries this time but he's just as gentle. He finds the corner of Baze's mouth and lifts his head to press his lips to his husbands. It's soft simple kiss but it means so much, 'I'm here, we're alive, we're together, I'm not leaving.' A sob catches in Baze's throat but he doesn't move until Chirrut does.

Chirrut ends the kiss reluctantly to wipes the tears away that have started to trail down Baze's face.

“Everything I have is your's.” Chirrut's breathy voice and Baze follows in his deep tenor, raspy from all that's happened. "Where you go I follow.”

They say the familiar bonding vows, the ones they said to each other at their wedding.

Baze holds Chirrut and looks to the horizon, he can still makes out the glow of flames from the Temple burning, The Empire, monster that they are were content to let it burn.

The Guardians, what was left of them, were outlaws now, without a home, but as long as Baze had Chirrut and Chirrut had him they would never be truly lost.

“can we go inside now?” Baze nudges Chirrut with his shoulder.

“Only if I can get a drink of water, I'm too thirsty to move.” Chirrut swallows and coughs for emphasis. Baze can hear the hint of humor in the words.

“Here you fool, I was coming to give the canteen to you, you know.”

"I know." 

“Oh, You know? What did you get hit on the head or something? Are you a clairvoyant now?”

“No, just a fool.” Baze gives over the canteen. Chirrut drinks and then Baze helps him up from the ground and keeps hold of him as they move to the door. If Baze has his way they won't be apart again for a long time.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading


End file.
